A tough build

Well, I attended the Mirrodin Besieged midnight Prerelease last night but it didn't go as smoothly as Scars. I opened a Sword of Feast and Famine and a True Conviction but a couple bombs wasn't enough to get me over the hump. The deck had a decent amount of usable metalcraft dudes, a lot of conditional removal and not quite enough good artifacts to make metalcraft run. I chose Mirran so only the White and Red was usable (though the Green was marginally playable). Here's the pool, shorn of it's useless colors

White	Red	Artifacts
Abuna Acolyte 2 X Ardent Recruit Auriok Sunchaser 2 X Divine Offering Ghalma's Warden Glimmerpoint Stag 2 X Leonin Relic-Warder Loxodon Partisan Master's Call Revoke Existence Seize the Initiative Sunspear Shikari True Conviction	2 X Blisterstick Shaman Burn the Impure Concussive Bolt 2 X Crush Galvanoth 2 X Gnathosaur Goblin Wardriver Koth's Courier Kuldotha Rebirth Rally the Forces Turn to Slag	Argentum Armor Bladed Sentinel 2 X Copper Myr Echo Circlet Grafted Exoskeleton Leaden Myr Nihil Spellbomb Shriekhorn Soliton Spin Engine Strider Harness Sylvok Lifestaff Vector Asp Vulshok Replica	Auriok Replica Copper Carapace Darksteel Plate Golem's Heart 2 X Gust-Skimmer Myr Reservoir Razorfield Rhino 2 X Silverskin Armor Sphere of the Suns Snapsail Glider Sword of Feast and Famine Throne of Geth Viridian Claw

I wanted to run metalcraft but the pool is long on playable equipment and short on good dudes to carry it. Here's what I came up with, with less than a minute to spare...

Creatures	Spells and Land
Abuna Acolyte 2 X Blisterstick Shaman Galvanoth Glimmerpoint Stag Goblin Wardriver Leonin Relic-Warder Loxodon Partisan Razorfield Rhino Sunspear Shikari Vulshok Replica	Burn the Impure Concussive Bolt 2 X Divine Offering Master's Call Revoke Existence Sword of Feast and Famine Sylvok Lifestaff True Conviction Turn to Slag Viridian Claw 9 Plains 9 Mountain

How would you build this pool?

Sailing the seas of pirates

Alright, alright, alright everbody!

The pirate draft league has fired a couple more times and updated standings are below...

Name	Record	Points/Event
Jacob B. Tim N. Jonathan B. Greg O. Thomas C. Brendan H. Alexis R. Matt R. Bobby H. Rob B. Caleb R. Ash O.	10-2 10-5 12-5 10-9 4-4 5-5 3-5 6-16 2-4 2-4 1-5 1-6	7.47 6.09 5.95 4.80 4.67 4.50 4.00 3.11 3.00 3.00 2.22 1.81

Ok! I am the only pirate with double digit losses! I could hit that after two more drafts! And you guys wonder why I think I suck.

Future drafts...Team Rochester! Ravnica Rotisserie! (I might retire the format after this) Besieged/Scars/Scars! Super cheap Shadowmoor/Shadowmoor/Eventide! (I am thinking $6).

Fun statistics.

Pirate Drafts: 8
Venues: 2
Formats: 3
Total Players: 25
Players with a winning record: 11
Players with a tied record: 2
Number of times Civic Wayfinder has killed someone: 1
Drafts I have 0-X'ed: 3

First Pauper Cube Draft

So I had the opportunity to attend a pauper draft hosted by Peter B. on Tuesday (1/18), and I drafted a very good aggro control U/B list. The list for reference:

Creatures
Looter Il-kor
Errant Ephemeron
Riftwing Cloudskate
Pestermite
Mneumonic Wall
Sea Gate Oracle
Mulldrifter
Boneshredder
Nekrataal
Hypnotic Specter
Marsh Flitter
Moroii

Spells
Exclude
Control Magic
Mind Control
Demonic Tutor
Necromancy
Dance of the Dead
Oubliette (Journey to Nowhere for 1BB)
Snuff Out
Terror
Soul Manipulation
Agony Warp

Mana
Mistvein Borderpost
Arcane Sanctum
Faerie Conclave
Wasteland
Evolving Wilds
6 Island
6 Swamp

Relevant sideboard:
Force of Will
Mindstab
Hymn to Tourach
Psychatog
Capsize
Infest

This deck combined the best of the things Blue and black do (Counter, kill, bounce, steal, and fly). I decided to play my reanimater spells over the Mindstab and Hymn because of the flexability of them (any graveyard), the fact that I had removal to kill and return their guy, and because 7 of my 12 guys have good etb abilities. There was a point when I could have cast Mulldrifter, but instead evoked it then played Dance of the Dead on it to draw 4 cards.


The draft was a bit awkward since we only had 5 players so we did a round robin.

Mital A. He was playing G/R/w/b? Mostly Red and green but a few white cards, and idk what the swamp was for (Mortify maybe)? I won handily in 2 games since I had flyers and card advantage and his beaters could not overcome my counters control magic and removal).

Peter with R/B/G. Much like my deck he had many aggressively-costed creatures with good etb effects (Shriekmaw, Fire Imp, FtK) as well as AEther Vial and Sensei's Top he won it in 3 after Blightning' me twice (regrowth) and then K. Torching me out, and again with the torch in game 3.

Jon B. had a W/U/r controllish deck that played some permission, big flyers and solid walls I got him in a close Game 3

Freiwald with R/W. He built a very aggressive deck, but saw none of his good burn against me, My counterspells stopped him from establishing a board presence while my flyers got the job done. won in two, but he was already a bit down after a key misplay in game 1 and conceded after missing a color

I took second to Jon due to the Sweep/ Swept/Heads up breakers. Awesome cube, it was nice not to have to worry about certain cards since only commons and uncommons are allowed. Thanks to everyone who showed up, and I would definitely like to do it again!